[Lowfer] EAR continues

[Garry and Linda Hess]

John,

I don't have that much experience listening to Navtex, or anything else 
below 500 kHz for that matter. Perhaps other more experienced listeners 
will share their experiences.

I've logged 23 Navtex stations so far in a year of infrequent monitoring 
for such signals, mainly using MultiPSK software. There are a number of 
other programs, some free, that decode the signals too. Most have been 
copied on 518 kHz (with the receiver set to 516.3 kHz, USB), but a few 
have been picked up on 490 kHz. Station NMR in Puerto Rico was first 
logged last June so I assume it must be fairly easily heard. A nice 
feature of most software is a scrolling area for decoded text. That 
allows one to leave the code run over night and look for "ZCZC..." 
station identification lines in the morning. On May 18 when I did that I 
found the Puerto Rico station and 7 others ( NMA, Miami; VCK, 
Rivière-au-Renard (Sept Îles), Quebec; NMB, Savannah; NMF, Boston; NMG, 
New Orleans; XMJ, Prescott (Wiarton), Ontario; and NMN, Chesepeake, VA). 
That was with a 10' loop yagi aimed at 120 degrees. During the winter I 
used that heading a few times and received a number of area 12 stations 
off the back, including NMW, Astoria. Best DX was NOJ, Kodiak, Alaska. 
During the winter, NDB IPA on Easter Island often comes in quite strong 
so decoding at least a few of the long list of area 15 Navtex stations 
in Chile seems a possibility. http://www.dxinfocentre.com/navtex.htm has 
an excellent listing of stations and transmit times plus a world map of 
the various navareas.

73, Garry, K3SIW, EN52ta, Elgin, IL